I tell them my fear. My crippling apprehension for being in apparent positions of helplessness and being trapped. I tell them what caused it. Everything about the Void Fog and how I had to twist my consciousness to stop myself going mad like the Void-Touched.
I sit there, expecting anger or disappointment, or at the very least irritation. I don’t meet any of their eyes as I fidget with my wings in front of my body.
“Huh. I always thought there was something more to the Void Fog than everyone assumed. The monsters it sometimes spits out are always incredibly unique,” Remus says, not even mentioning my fears.
“That explains how quick you were to learn to suppress your thoughts.”
Jav joins me on Grímr’s back. The large cat not complaining about his passengers. Jav takes a few steps until he’s right in front of my beak. I try to turn my head away, but he puts his paw out to stop me.
“Look me in the eye,” he says, and I have no choice but to do exactly that. “I don’t care what sort of misunderstanding you have about this phobia of yours. As long as you put the effort in to help yourself and find workarounds, it doesn’t matter how crippling it is. Your team is here to cover your weaknesses, just as we do for each other. Now, are you going to let this stop you?”
How else can I answer that? “No.”
“Good, because if the caves are too much for you, we’ll have to climb. I hope you’re ready. Oh, and you should change back for this; you really don’t want to be flying around here.”
I twist my head to the others and see none of the irritation I’d been expecting.
Huh.
I guess I have been overreacting. But it’s still embarrassing to speak about something that makes me so weak. To hide from the humiliation, I take Jav’s advice and begin my transformation.
It is interesting to see how each of my team approaches the vertical climb. Tetsu has pulled out a pair of curved knives and stabs each deep into the frozen wall for leverage. Grímr looks incredibly odd walking up as if it were the surface; his claws slicing into the ice under his feet. Jav has it the hardest; I can’t tell if he feigns sleep, or he’s actually taking a nap on top of Remus. The dohrni doesn’t mind his passenger as he fits his long limbs in any thin crack he can find and pulls himself up.
My arms are wrapped around Grímr’s neck. I’m unable to reach my hands with how thick his neck is, but his thick fur is a good enough handhold anyway.
The heavy cracks resounding with each stab of Tetsu’s blades into the ice do nothing but stress me out, and for good reason too. Another swing of her blade fractures much of the surrounding ice. A section of the glacial wall dislodges and tilts away, taking Tetsu with it. Only a quick reaction from Remus saves her; he jumps off the wall and, with a crack of his whip-like limbs, shatters the dislodged ice before pulling her back to the wall.
This has happened four times now.
You’d think Tetsu would learn to be softer with her blows to the ice. But no, she continues to slam her arms into the wall without so much as an acknowledgement that she was close to plunging to her death.
We only have another three incidents before we reach the base of the forest of ice pillars. This region of the glacier — damaged by the passing Titan — isn’t as easily traversed as I’d hoped when I’d seen it. The massive shards of ice are like the walls themselves, but there is no ground to stand on between them. Between each spike leads down into the extensive tunnels and fissures running through the ground underneath us.
Instead of a — relatively — easy climb up a single slope, we need to jump from one pillar to another. Maybe that wouldn’t have been an issue if these shards weren’t ten to twenty metres away from each other.
Yet Tetsu hops between the pillars with ease that even Remus couldn’t hope to mimic. She launches off the ice with both legs extending at the same time, not even bothering to use the knives to get a grip before bouncing off once more.
Oh.
Bunny.
I can’t help but let out an involuntary laugh. A laugh which attracts her attention.
“What?”
“I get it.” I declare, smiling up at her.
“You get what?” she raises an eyebrow.
“Bunny!”
She scoffs and jumps away as a round of guffaws erupts from the rest of the team.
A satisfied sigh escapes me as I gaze at those around me. I was foolish to think they would think less of me for my phobia. It is good to see that the team has quickly returned to their usual camaraderie.
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Tetsu… no, Bunny has never complained about their nickname for her. Of course, she reacts upon hearing it, but if she truly had an issue, I’m sure she would ask the team to stop.
I hold tight as Grímr pounces to the nearest pillar. The heavy cat’s claws dig deep into the ice. Deep gashes follow the movement before our momentum comes to a halt. He lifts his paw to continue climbing when an intense crack reverberates through the area.
More cracking sounds out until an echoing crash washes over us. I can feel the rumbling vibrations in the ice even through Grímr.
There’s no sign of where the loud noise came from, but as I look around, one of the tall ice shards we passed only a few minutes ago cracks and topples into its neighbours. The base of the pillar cannot hold its weight and shatters, dropping the collapsing ice down into the tunnels underneath. The second tall shard cracks from the impact and slams into the next pillar. It comes to a rest, dangerously ready to fall, but not quite dropping.
Despite the visible collapse of a pillar we only just passed, that isn’t what I’m worried about. The initial crashing noise was far heavier than the collapse of the pillar right behind me.
“What was that?”
“Part of the glacial wall collapsing,” Grímr says, before continuing up the ice.
“Is that normal?” how do they know it won’t happen while we’re climbing?
“Unfortunately. In the past, they’ve tried building bridges across the crevasse, but having a few million tonnes of ice fall on any structure is a quick way to destroy it.”
“What do you do if it collapses when you’re climbing it?”
“You fling yourself as far away as you can and hope you don’t die from the fall.” I can’t tell if he’s joking or not. “Of course, Luis teams like us won’t have too much of an issue if it happens. And there are well-charted areas that are monitored for stability to allow the lower ranked teams passage with little risk.”
I hug myself tighter into Grímr. The very fragile structures around me added to the list of things I’m not thinking about. Along with entrapping caves below and the unbelievable amount of frozen water around me.
Yes, definitely not thinking about any of those things.
Not thinking about them.
Not thinking about them.
Damn.
After a while of climbing through the forest of spikes, we come to the edge of the Titan’s path and pull ourselves up the last wall of ice before we are on flat ground again.
A plane of wavy glacier extends far as I can see. A constant upward slope of ice peppered with holes and fissures. Looking back down into the Titan’s path, the pillars of ice extend through it until I can’t make them out anymore. There is a distinct lack of mountains or rock for leagues from here, leaving the far-extending glacier as the only thing in sight beside the peak of the Alps that hulk beyond.
We don’t stand around long. While not inside the path anymore, we actually have stable ground on the outskirts of the where the Titan has travelled. The path itself is almost triple as wide and five times deeper than back in the Stepps. I guess the heat of the Titan melted the ice much easier than it did rock.
My team speeds into a jog, but nowhere near as fast as I’d become used to in the past few days. I also notice the team is more structured in their relative positions as we run along the inclining ice. Even when Remus throws Jav, he isn’t gone for thirty minutes each time like before. Now, I can see him even at the maximum distance he travels.
That playfulness I’ve felt amongst the team until now isn’t gone exactly, but it feels subdued. More serious. I follow their lead, keeping my eye out for any of those creatures we’re supposed to be following.
“So… how are we supposed to find where the beasts are coming from if they all use the glacial tunnels? I have yet to see any on the surface,” Jav says as he comes back from his most recent flight.
“For now, we continue on,” Remus says. “We still have a reason to believe they are coming from the Middle Elevation. If we cannot find a sign of them once past the worst of the glacier, then we can come back and search through the tunnels.”
Grímr grumbles beneath me. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. We have more than a few reasons for that to be less than ideal.”
We continue our gradual trot alongside the ledge, heading up the slope. Hours pass and I get lost in the fascinating reflections of the sunlight through the ice. It is mostly transparent, so the patches of glacier that aren’t covered in snow gives me an incredible view of the intricate weave of tunnels and fissures below. The light distorts the image and the blue tint eventually stops me seeing any lower, but it’s an enrapturing sight.
I notice Grímr’s ear twitch and a moment later he shakes his head and I feel a shiver run through his body. The temperature is horribly low now. I’m glad I stopped flying; my snowsuit is incredibly warm. I feel bad for Grímr out in the open to this cold. After having been on my ride for so long, I feel I owe him.
I unzip the connection locking my gloves to my suit to allow my inner flame to engulf Grímr’s fur coat. The chill and lack of air make spreading my flame incredibly difficult, but I burn through a good portion of my energy to heat the portian up.
I snap my gloves closed once more to keep the chill out while keeping control of my flame. It is almost the limit of my ability to keep my flames burning with such little air. I hope we don’t have far to go until we reach the Middle Elevation; it’s extremely difficult to breathe already, I can only imagine it getting worse the higher we go.
Despite the warm blanket I’ve given Grímr, he ignores it. His ear twitches again, and he picks up the pace until he’s right next to Remus.
“Comfortable?” Remus asks with smirking eyes as he notices my flames.
Grímr doesn’t react to his comment. “We’re being followed,” he grunts, almost too quiet for me to hear.
We are? I’m just about to turn to look around, but Remus’ words stop me.
“Solvei, stop!” He says hurriedly. “Don’t let them know we know.” He turns his sight back ahead of us but addresses Grímr. “Where? How many?”
“A few hundred metres directly behind us. Just one. It sounds like it’s crawling through the tunnels.”
“Beast?”
“Can’t tell; the sound isn’t distinct enough.”
Remus pauses for a moment. “Alright, we’ll continue as we are for now. Tell me if it closes the distance or you lose track of it.”
Even though everyone walks the same as before, I can tell they are far more wary of their surroundings now. Each depression in the ice possibly hiding an ambush.
There is something out there following us, but that it only follows and doesn’t attack is worrying; is it the only one? Are there more waiting ahead and the one behind is readying to pincer us?
The most dangerous thing is the lack of information we have. I can’t help but feel the worst possibility is being surrounded, so why don’t we engage the thing following us while we have the upper hand? I don’t know, Remus is the most experienced with these things.
I’ve only known him for a few weeks, but I trust his judgement.